...building a new society within the shell of the old one.

October 16, 2016

Back in the late 1960s, while still a student, I came across a book by Charles Abrams, a UN advisor on housing matters. In that book, Man's Struggle for Shelter in An Urbanizing World, Abrams describes how people living in the shanty towns of Latin America or Africa create housing for themselves. These areas are known by a variety of names – 'barrio or 'favela' in Latin America for example.

The first step was to acquire a piece of land, not necessarily legally. On that land a very simple single room dwelling would be erected, using whatever material could be acquired. As money becomes available the dwelling is extended and upgraded. Plastic and cardboard is replaced by concrete blocks. More floor space is added. A first floor is constructed. Gradually the building consolidates itself on the plot.

Because so often the occupation of the site was illegal, this dwelling would however have no water supply, no sanitation or power. Conditions in the neighbourhood would be squalid and unhealthy. Because the site has been grabbed from whatever is available access for vehicles may well be impossible. There is little incentive to improve the house in these circumstances.

The typical state response to this is clearance. There are many disadvantages to this of course. The redevelopment schemes are expensive and can only house a fraction of the people living in these illegal settlements. As those who are rehoused are moved out, their places are taken by new immigrants and the problem persists. Frequently those moved out are unhappy too. They may be miles away from their place of work and either lose their job or are forced to make long and complicated journeys. In both cases they are usually worse off financially. It isn't unknown for the displaced residents to move back to their old neighbourhood. (Although not something I'm going to pursue here, these were of course similar to the problems experienced by residents in the so-called slum clearance areas here in the UK in the '50s and '60s.)

Abrams proposed an alternative that he believed would be cheaper and better meet the needs of the impoverished families involved. He wanted to harness the energy and commitment of the residents of the 'favela', already demonstrated in their willingness to move from impoverished rural locations to live in squalor in exchange for the chance to improve their lot.

He suggested a formalisation of the process already going on, by setting out a grid of serviced roads and plots, each with water, sanitation and power connections available. On these plots could be erected a simple one room dwelling as before. This could be done by the occupier or by the state. He called this ‘core housing’. Although the space available would be as restricted as before, because minimal infrastructure was in place, the living conditions would be significantly improved.

As before, as money became available, residents would be able to enlarge and extend the house to meet their specific needs. Rather than being displaced to an inflexible high rise block where they lost all control over their surroundings, they would remain in control of their lives. They could grow food to support themselves or for sale or exchange with neighbours. They would have a secure tenure and could pass the property on to younger generations.

This isn't a new process of course. It is what happened with the homesteaders of 19th Century America, it happened in the whaling settlements of Nantucket and it happens traditionally in Malaya. (Images from ‘How Buildings Learn ’ by Stuart Brand)

Closer to home it is what happened in planned mediaeval settlements here in the UK and in English controlled France. There is a good list in the book 'New Towns of the Middle Ages' by Maurice Beresford, originally published in 1967. That list places as varied as Devizes, Hungerford, Thirsk, Uxbridge, Boroughbridge, Wokingham and Truro. Another example is the Chequers area of Salisbury. Chequer has the same root as 'quarter', in the sense of an area of a town. It also gives us the word chequerboard for reasons that should be clear from the image below (taken from Beresford above). In these planned towns or plantations, roads would have been set out and plots sold or let subject to covenants covering the broad form of the development to be built. Typically there might be a requirement to build in brick or stone, limit the height to no more than 3-4 stories, to build across the entire frontage and limiting the uses that could be carried out on the plot. Out of these simple rules came the endless variety of the English Market Town.

In the next post I’m going to look at how these ideas might be adapted in the UK.

January 30, 2014

The problem is not that government schools cannot succeed, for in nearly all developing countries some of the very best schools are government schools. The problem is, as the LEAPS study authors emphasize, "when government schools fail, they fail completely"...

August 13, 2013

Large Lump development is based on the idea of replacement. Piecemeal growth is based on the idea of repair. Since replacement means consumption of resources it is easier to see that piecemeal growth is the sounder of the two from an ecological point of view. But there are even more practical differences. Large lump development is based on the fallacy that it is possible to build perfect buildings. Piecemeal growth is based on the healthier and more realistic view that mistakes are inevitable… Unless money is available for repairing these mistakes, every building once built is condemned to be, to some extent, unworkable…Piecemeal growth is based on the assumption that adaptation between buildings and their users is necessarily a slow and continuous business which cannot, under any circumstances, be achieved in a single leap.

Politicians don’t want to hear this message. They need the large lumps, the overblown ‘regeneration’ projects whose only measure of success is how much money is being spent (often ours) because that way they can retain control. Piecemeal growth depends on lots of individuals and small businesses making their own choices – where would the politician’s corporate paymasters supporters be then?

June 29, 2013

Somehow I have only just come on the work of Albert Jay Knock. I don’t know how I missed him, but I did and I’m now sharing a passage that leapt out at me when I read it this morning in his book 'Our Enemy, the State . Written in about 1934 it seems equally apposite today:

It is unfortunately none too well understood that, just as the State has no money of its own, so it has no power of its own. All the power it has is what society gives it, plus what it confiscates from time to time on one pretext or another; there is no other source from which State power can be drawn. Therefore every assumption of State power, whether by gift or seizure, leaves society with so much less power; there is never, nor can there be, any strengthening of State power without a corresponding and roughly equivalent depletion of social power.

See also this from Bertrand Russell, that I originally posted way back in 2007.

June 28, 2013

...there is a profound sense in which authoritarianism (and even totalitarianism) feel right to many people -- "right" in the sense that it is very familiar, that it is the environment in which they were first made to function. So when the State expands its control over us, when the State spies on us, when the State lists more and more activities which are forbidden or for which we must seek "permission" before we act, and even when the State announces that it has a Murder Program, many people, most people, think: "The State knows best. The State has much more information than I do, and our leaders must have reasons for their actions. And certainly, the State only acts to protect us. The State acts for our own good." This is what we had to believe about our parents, regardless of the cruelties to which they subjected us -- and this is what most adults now believe about their political leaders.

June 11, 2013

If there was ever a better indicator of the poverty of thinking of this nasty excuse for a government and of the lies they tell us about localism, it is the fact that they deem it necessary not just to tell thousands of school students that their efforts are a waste of time but that they want to include in the legislation details of precisely how each grade will be designated - numbers not letters, 1 must be the lowest grade, 8 the highest.

March 16, 2013

It should be no surprise that those given access to power over others will tend to use it, but we seem to be getting more than our fair share of lying cheating bastard (henceforward LCB) stories lately.

Selling horsemeat for beef, the resignation of the head of the RC church in Scotland, accusations about the former CE of the Liberal Democrats, lies by Teresa May over immigration, lies by Ian Duncan Smith over free labour for big companies in the guise of support for job seekers, endless stories of sexual misconduct by RC priests, the investigation into Jimmy Saville turning up all sorts of other nastiness, phone hacking, police corruption, appalling behaviour by the companies paid our money to help people back to work, lies over the change from DLA to so-called Personal Independence Payments, lies over what Hilary Mantel is supposed to have said by newspapers and politicians alike, – these are just what springs immediately come to mind.

Is their a remedy? The State depends on the acquiescence of the people and on the support of cronies in the big corporates. Without breaking the law do everything you can to simply ignore it. Do all you can to make it an irrelevance and the big corporates superfluous. Give away as little power and information as possible. Routinely use a proxy web server, routinely encrypt e-mails, turn off wifi and Bluetooth whenever possible on your mobile phone, (you'll save battery life anyway), pay cash or barter for goods and services, reduce your dependence on centrally provided infrastructure like power and water by upgrading insulation, installing solar power or heat exchangers wherever feasible.

Building a new society inside the shell of the old one – make government and the corporate state irrelevant.

January 27, 2013

C4's conspiracy thriller Utopia has a fascinating web-site attached, describing how we are being watched by government and others and our privacy invaded - but also the many ways in which we collaborate, willingly or from ignorance, in that process. Did you know for example that the government are considering ways to use ANPR cameras at filling stations to restrict access to fuel for uninsured drivers? Of course it
doesn't have to be the uninsured. You just might be on a list somewhere and making you buy fuel more frequently keeps you under observation and limits your mobility.

Remember - just because you are paranoid, doesn't mean they are not out to get you...

December 19, 2012

The government says it will 'permit' the marriage of same sex couples in churches and synagogues etc except for the established Church of England and for some reason the Church of Wales which was disestablished in 1920. Apparently those two bodies are against the idea so they are going to be forbidden to do it. Strange logic don't you think?

If the CofE are against the idea why do they need to be forbidden? Why forbod the Church of Wales when it isn't even an established church? More to the point though, is this really an equality issue or is it about freedom? Chris Dillow suggests the latter:

Think of it this way. Over a very wide domain, the state already takes
no interest in my choice of marriage partners. It is indifferent to
their age (subject only to age of consent laws), ethnicity,
psychological compatibility or appearance. Why, then, should it care
about the contents of their trousers? Viewed in this frame, permitting
gay marriage merely expands the range of characteristics of my marriage
partners about which the state doesn't care. It's a small step to
greater freedom. We could rename "equal marriage" as "free marriage."

I think he's right. Making this an issue of equal rights allows all the old nonsense about 'political correctness' to be trotted out by the right wing dinosaurs of the right. The left by accepting this framing of the issue have lost the chance to re-attach themselves to the idea of freedom and so handed yet another stick to the right with which they can be beaten. Chris Dillow again:

So, why is the issue so often framed as one of equality rather than
freedom? I suspect conservatives have an instinctive aversion to gay
marriage, and prefer to rationalize this as a big issue of equality
rather a small issue of freedom, because they feel more comfortable
opposing equality than opposing freedom. Conversely, campaigners for
legalizing gay marriage - being mostly on the left - feel more
comfortable with talk of equality.

Much opposition to the idea of gay marriages is based on the false premise that 'allowing' it gives the state the right to enforce it. They are wrong - it isn't for the state to force, allow or even enable gay marriage in churches. It should simply be something in which they take no interest - which should of course also apply to the CofE itself. Disestablishment would itself be a step towards greater freedom.

May 22, 2012

I have been in hospital for two weeks and not very active for a while before that so this link is as much a marker to prove I'm still here as an active post! The ALL site is well worth following though.